Commentary: Can Donald Trump help resolve the conflicts in the Middle East?

Donald Trump talked a lot about inflation, immigration and crime during his two-year campaign for the presidency. Indeed, his third bid for the White House was predicated on those three issues. But Trump wasn’t shy on another issue that has far less resonance with the American electorate generally: peace in the Middle East. On occasions, Trump talked about how the war in Gaza needed to end sooner rather than later and how the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue was, in his words, going to be “very, very tough” to implement.

Nobody would dispute the final point. Resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been the proverbial white whale of U.S. diplomacy stretching back to at least the George H. W. Bush era. President Bill Clinton had some success, striking the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). But that agreement, once synonymous with success, is now a byword for disappointment. Today, the West Bank remains under Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority is a laughingstock and Palestinian politicians are divided among themselves.

In his first term, Trump waited far too long before he released a plan for Middle East peace — and when he did, the draft was riddled with so many deficiencies that the Palestinians threw it into the trash.

To state the obvious, the Middle East has changed markedly since that plan was presented more than four years ago. Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault in southern Israel tore apart the old rulebook U.S. administrations of both political parties operated with for so long. While U.S. officials still view the two-state solution as the best method for resolving the conflict, Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas and the utter hate both sides have for one another makes any talk of a two-state solution downright delusional. Gaza is now a wasteland riddled with hunger, death, displacement and damage to infrastructure to the tune of$18.5 billion. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to a Palestinian state, as is a growing segment of the Israeli population.

Another war is playing out in Lebanon. The border skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah have escalated into a full-scale conflict. About one-fifth of the Lebanese population has been displaced, and 60,000 or so Israelis are unable to return to their homes in northern Israel, a target of incessant Hezbollah drone and rocket attacks. Beirut’s southern suburbs look as if they were struck by an earthquake. Israel is expanding the scope of its air campaign against Hezbollah, hitting targets far beyond the group’s support base in southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, another round of hostilities between Iran and Israel can’t be discounted as Trump prepares to return to his old job. The two archenemies have taken their decadeslong shadow war to new heights. Tehran’s Oct. 1 missile strike on Israel, which caused minor damage but still breached Israel’s air defense network, opened up the floodgates for another round of Israeli retaliation, which came at the end of October. Israel hit multiple sites connected to Iran’s air defense system and missile production facilities. After first downplaying the operation, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that a punishing Iranian response would be coming.

Trump, therefore, will reenter the White House in January with a Middle East mess he will have difficulty cleaning up. Can he actually resolve any of these conflicts? Given his tendency to regard himself as the world’s most successful negotiator, Trump probably thinks he can. The reality, though, is that the issues have such a deep history that even the most talented diplomat might not have much luck.

The Iran-Israel dispute is incapable of resolution. Both states view the other as the principal reason the region is in such turmoil today. Netanyahu and Khamenei may be different on many levels, but both are stubborn to a fault. Neither one will offer big concessions to the other, and you can forget about Israeli or Iranian foreign policy changing to any significant degree. Israel thinks Iran wants to wipe it off the map, and Iran believes Israel wants to topple the Islamic Republic. The most that can be accomplished on this front is a de facto cease-fire, in which the competition is no longer as overt as it is right now.

In contrast, the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon can be resolved. U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein is submitting cease-fire drafts back and forth to the respective players and stated last week that “ there is a shot” at a deal. Everybody knows what the general parameters of that prospective deal look like: Hezbollah would withdraw about 20 miles north of the Israeli-Lebanese border; the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers would redeploy to the south to ensure compliance; Israel would withdraw its own troops from Lebanon; and the cease-fire would be monitored by a coalition of international powers. The big question is whether Israel will insist on enforcing the cease-fire, which Hezbollah is opposed to, or leave it up to the Lebanese army.

As it pertains to Gaza, Trump can forget about a deal anytime soon. Netanyahu is in no mood to settle with a terrorist group that killed 1,200 of Israel’s citizens. His entire political survival depends on ultranationalist ministers who see any settlement that ends the war as surrender of the highest order. The most Netanyahu will offer is a temporary cessation of hostilities to get the remaining hostages out of Gaza. This isn’t good enough for Hamas, which wants a permanent, guaranteed end to the war.

Prediction: Israel will be fighting a low-level conflict in Gaza throughout 2025.

I wouldn’t want to be in Trump’s shoes. Good luck to you, Mr. President-elect.

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Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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